A Song for Freedom
It's not right to eat spring chickens when they're born inside a cage
with clipped wings in their alleys while we sing the grapes of rage
Every city lost its soul when the hoisted rag was rung
Every suburb, every countryside where freedom songs are sung
For every senator with power, apple pie to feed the poor
Every judge that never read a book that hasn't mentioned war
Every countryman with polished guns that's seen but never known
Every child must plant a quiet dream in fields where poppy's flown
Light creeps over gentle fields still wet with silver hope
and falls to warm a quiet child, of whom poets have spoke
Never in the days of man has life meant so much more
and never has the word of mouth had proverbs in it's lore
All the children in the alleys making light in dim railyards
aren't the villains jailers victimize in tales told with stale cigars
The only criminal is age, bleeding wisdom in it's trail
as the vulgar birds flap dirty wings and haunt the blackened sails
The heartland never saw it's shade, only the borderline;
the farmers, workers, artisans with freedom on their minds
Cast away like looseleaf because of scribble on a page
forsaken from the promise of the trail our fathers made
David slung a quiet stone with decibles of weight
that flew into the head of wrath and helmet it did break
Every president and congressman is doomed to keep a vow
To every little speck of life in every quiet town
I am just a city boy, Brooklyn born and bred
I'll never learn the etiquette of English figureheads
But to the fields of freedom by the seat of an accord
I'll roll til dawning haunts the land and grapes no longer stored
I just wanted so much more but never should I take
I'll learn to eat the words I spew, the promises I make
The world is smaller than we think but greater than we know
It holds a mass of dignity that flags can never show
Morning stalks the black of night that hollows on the trees
to laugh into the hold of dawn and golden every leaf
What will make you burst in tears will make you love your life
Every city, every countryside is blessed with freedom's light